MUSIC & FESTIVALS

​Bay Area Thrash legends Metallica have announced a North American tour in support of their latest full length, Hardwired to Self-Destruct. The tour, the band’s first since 2009, will kick off in Baltimore, Maryland on May 10th and hit stadiums in 25 cities before wrapping up August 16th in Edmonton, Canada.

The trek will feature support from Avenged Sevenfold and Volbeat. The latter of which will be replaced by French Progressive Metal band Gojira for the second half of the tour.

Justifying the huge scope of the venues, drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone that: “Full stadium runs can sometimes be a little intimidating. There’s all these things to worry about like, ‘You should really try to play maybe only on the weekend,’ and ‘Where do you play on Tuesday?’ and some of those practicalities can get a little bewildering. We just threw caution to the wind. Doing a stadium run seemed like the perfect thing on the back of how well this record has been received and all the good will that’s out there in Metallica’s world right now.”

Metallica has been in the news recently as their genre-defying Grammy performance with Lady Gaga was marred by technical issues. Frontman James Hetfield was clearly frustrated when his mic wasn’t working for the first half of “Moth into Flame” and ended the performance by kicking over his mic stand and hurling his guitar to a crew member.

Ulrich brushed off the incident as a “slight technical snafu” and went on to praise Lady Gaga and the “quintessential perfect fifth member of this band.

Hardwired to Self-Destruct is the band’s first studio album in eight years. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The album went to number one in 57 countries.

Another Grammy performer and winner, Chicago artist, Chance the Rapper has announced a Spring tour.

The 39 date arena tour will begin in San Diego, California on April 24th and conclude October 4th in Los Angeles. The run will include stops at JMBYLA, Boston Calling, Sasquatch, Governor’s Ball, Bonnaroo, Firefly and the Bon Iver-curated Eaux Claires festivals.

Chance the Rapper was nominated for seven Grammy awards and won three – Best New Artist, Best Rap Album, and Best Rap Performance. He made history at the award show by being the first artist to win without selling physical copies of his albums. In fact, all of his music is posted online for free. He explained his methodology in a recent Vanity Fair interview:

“After meeting with the three major labels, I realized my strength was being able to offer my best work to people without any limit on it. I make money from touring and selling merchandise, and I honestly believe if you put effort into something and you execute properly, you don’t necessarily have to go through the traditional ways.”

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